Fill the Silent Places
by free.song
Summary: <html><head></head>Sometimes Danny needs everything; Steve never hesitates to give it to him.</html>


Disclaimer: I do not own Hawaii Five-0.

Notes: Written for my h50_50 prompt table on lj.

Prompt: Silence

* * *

><p>"I cannot believe you."<p>

"Danny-"

"Why are you talking? You-No. You do not get to talk right now. No, Steven, shut up," he says, pointing a finger for emphasis, and glaring over at his partner, slouched in the passenger seat and flashing a pained grimace until he notices Danny looking and it disappears because God forbid Steven J. McGarrett ever let himself look like he might be hurting a little. He slips further down in the seat and sulks, and Danny absolutely does not find himself caving for that. At all.

"I was just gonna say-" Steve tries, and Danny makes a noise that he thinks, in any other circumstance, could be described as a growl.

"I do not need your input, Steven. I am driving us to your house, not HQ because it is Friday night, and the fucking bad guys are in jail, and the rest of the scumbags on this goddamn island can wait until Monday. You just sit over there, and be quiet," he snaps, and focuses back on the road so he doesn't have to see the mildly hurt look Steve levels at him. It does not make him feel like he just kicked a puppy, and the stupid fucking idiot of a SEAL deserves it.

Danny scowls and takes a corner too sharp. Steve hisses when he gets jostled into the door, and that does not make Danny's conscience yell at him. It doesn't.

"Jesus, Danny, take it easy would you?" Steve asks, and pushes himself straight in the seat again, and that is just it, okay, that is it, he cannot take it anymore.

"Oh, that's rich coming from you! I'm sorry, did that hurt Steven? Was that maybe a little uncomfortable for you after getting yourself _shot_?" he asks, taking a hand off the wheel to gesture wildly in the air in some futile effort to describe exactly how stupid he thinks Steve is. "You know, when you went in there without back-up _again_, despite me telling you that I was almost there, to wait, to _not go in alone_," he adds, aware that his volume is rising, and not able to bring himself to care at all.

He just keeps flashing back to busting through the door, and hearing that gun shot, and fucking standing there watching Steve go down, and God, he'd thought…

He just can't get the image out of his head. Steve falling, hitting the ground, and laying there for a moment, too still. It keeps replaying over, and over, on a loop, and he had been so terrified in that second before Steve had gotten back up, and the world had started spinning again; crazy, and full of noise instead of the sound of a gun shot, and nothing but silence.

Steve is watching him, quiet, probably recognizes that Danny's maybe feeling a little crazy right now. "I'm okay, Danny," he says, after a long moment, and reaches over to tug one of Danny's hands off the wheel, and tangle their fingers together and that just-he can't…

"Fucking giant goof," Danny sighs, tightens his own grip on Steve's hand, and holds on.

"I watched you go down today, Steven, okay? I watched you go down, and lay there, and I thought you were dead," he stops and has to take a breath. "I thought you were dead, babe." He doesn't even care that his voice breaks because Christ, but he never expected this. He never expected to find something worth staying for other than Gracie, to find someone who could show him the Island, and make him maybe start to think of it as 'home' and give him a family again.

He never expected to fall in love, and especially not with the crazy asshole sitting beside him because fuck, Danny thought he had better self-preservation skills than that.

He pulls into Steve's driveway and puts the car in park; they sit there, silent, until Steve gets out, and comes around to Danny's side. He opens the door, and tugs Danny out, and crowds him against the car.

"Hey, Danny," he says, and reaches up to palm Danny's cheek gently, tilting his face up, "look at me."

Danny does, stares him right in the eyes, and Jesus; for all of Steve's military stoicism, the big goof wears his heart right there in his eyes, all of everything he feels laid out right there for Danny to see. His breath catches, and he swallows hard.

"I'm okay; I'm here," Steve says and shifts forward until they're touching, everywhere, and Danny can't breathe right. "I'm right here, Danny," he adds, says the words into Danny's neck, and Danny makes some kind of animal noise he'll deny later, and pushes into him. He can't resist, okay, not with Steve right here, and alive, and it doesn't matter how pissed he is. He's more grateful that he still has this, and he can always yell at Steve more later.

He reaches up and tugs until he has Steve right where he wants him, kisses him, and it's maybe a little desperate, a little rough; the slide of lips, and tongues, and Danny knows okay, he knows he won't be able to live without this, and it just makes that image in his mind stand out all the more starkly. He swallows hard, and buries his face against Steve's chest, presses a kiss there, right over his heart, and breathes out raggedly. He doesn't let go of Steve's shirt, clutches it like a life-line, and pushes back into Steve's hand as it runs up and down his spine in big, sweeping arcs.

Steve drags him inside a moment later, but Danny is the one who tugs Steve's clothes off, and pushes him down onto the bed before crawling over him. Steve lets him, gives Danny everything with no hesitation like it's easy; like he's not the giant fucking control freak that he is. Danny likes it more than he should, having Steve splayed out beneath him, all his, and it's a little crazy knowing he has this kind of power over Steve; that his partner would give over every ounce of himself just because Danny needs it. And he does; he really does, and he uses it because he can't not with Steve's skin under his hands, and the way he says Danny's name, breathless and like it's something precious.

It goes a long way towards driving that image out of his head, of filling the silent places inside of him with noise, and light, and leaving no room for the darkness.

"Right here, Danny," Steve says, gasps, bringing him back to the here and now, where Steve is so close, and Danny can see it, feel it, and he draws it out because he doesn't want to let go yet. Steve reaches up and tugs him down for a kiss he expects to be hard and rough like the rest of them have been, riding the edge of too-desperate and not enough; instead he gets tenderness that surprises him and manages to still all of his movements for half a second because _this_ okay, this is what he needed and he didn't even know.

"C'mon babe," he coaxes finally, teases Steve to the edge and pushes him over. "I got you," he mumbles into Steve's skin and arches up into the hand that runs through his hair with too much open affection.

"Danny," and his name is somewhere between a breathless gasp and a moan, and the way Steve drawls it out has Danny tumbling over the edge with him, and he lays there afterwards, spent but feeling so much lighter and easier, and he can fucking breathe again. The silence in his head is gone, replaced by Steve muttering his name over and over like some kind of prayer and he thinks maybe, just maybe, he'll make it through this half-way sane.


End file.
